Rock a Bye Baby

by Mia Dolan

  He’d relinquished his job with Alan Taylor.

  ‘You two are not as close as you once were. There is a reason for this?’

  Tony Brooks couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes. She was his own mother yet she scared him, mostly because she knew him so well.

  ‘I’ll get a job somewhere. I’ve got friends.’

  He didn’t want to admit anything about how and why they’d fallen out. Neither did he want to drop Alan in it. There were too many skeletons in the cupboard and if he wasn’t careful one or two might fall out.

  He was desperate to know whether his mother had heard from Marcie.

  She shook her head when he asked her. ‘I do not know where she is. I only wish I did.’

  Her gaze drifted to the boys playing in the back garden. There was no reason, as far as she was concerned, for Marcie to run away. Her father had agreed to let her marry Johnnie and she herself had voiced no objection, so why had she gone the way she had? ‘They say history repeats itself,’ she said without thinking.

  She caught sight of her son’s face and instantly regretted it. ‘I did not mean that she has met the same fate as her mother—’

  Her words seemed to catch in her throat like the spines of thistles.

  Tony rubbed at his eyes with the fingers and thumb of one hand. ‘Please, God, no,’ he whispered. ‘Please, God, no.’

  Rosa sat for a while in the dark that night. At first she didn’t hear the knock at the door, she was so lost in thought.

  Whoever was knocking was very determined.

  Rosa got up from her chair. ‘Alright, alright, I am coming,’ she said.

  Garth had taken to calling on her more frequently these days and it wasn’t in her to tell him not to keep bothering her. His face lit up at the sight of her.

  ‘I can’t stop,’ he said as she opened the door wide enough for him to enter. ‘I’ve got a shilling to get myself some chips. But I did you a picture. I thought you might like it.’

  She thanked him, took the picture and watched him lollop off down the garden path.

  Placing the rolled-up piece of paper on the table, she lit the gas and put the kettle on. Something stopped her from unfurling the crumpled paper on which Garth drew his pictures. She’d lost faith in her gift of late, so even though she felt that her husband, Cyril, was here urging her to look at the picture, she determined not to. It wasn’t until about three in the morning that the urge was so strong it stirred her to full wakefulness.

  Without recourse to dressing gown or slippers, she went down the narrow staircase to the ground floor. The room was in total darkness. She turned on a light, went through to the kitchen and turned that one on too.

  The piece of paper had probably been used to wrap half a pound of sausages and was a bit crumpled.

  Once she could see what he’d drawn, her eyes filled with tears. This was not what she’d expected. This was not at all what she’d expected.

  It was still dark when Marcie awoke. She heard the clock down in the ground floor hallway strike two, and yet she knew that wasn’t what had woken her.

  Pain rolled from her breasts to her loins, her belly pulsing with each muscular contraction. On raising herself up on her hands, she felt the wetness of her bedding. She was frightened. Oh God, she was frightened.

  ‘Sally? Sally?’

  The hump that was Sally moved slightly and murmured a response.

  Marcie raised her voice. ‘I’ve started. Help me.’

  Everything moved swiftly from then on.

  Her wrists were strapped to the trolley. ‘For safety,’ they told her. ‘To stop you falling off.’

  She didn’t care that it smacked of torture and murmured prayers on the way to the delivery room. When was the last time she’d done that?

  The main part of the old building echoed to new sounds, shouted orders, quick marching and the continuous opening and closing of doors.

  Nurses in stiff headdresses flapped around her. She saw the doctor’s pale young face peering down at her.

  The pain went on and on.

  ‘She can’t bring it,’ somebody said.

  ‘Her blood pressure …’

  ‘I’m going to have to cut along the perineum. Pethidine. We need Pethidine.’

  Marcie rolled her head from side to side. She was sweating and hot and in terrible pain. She had reached that moment when she didn’t care what they did or what happened.

  ‘This will help the pain,’ someone murmured against her ear.

  She felt a needle being plunged into her thigh. Then there was nothing, not until she heard a faint cry sounding so, so very far away.

  Everything was white when she came round. The walls, the ceiling, the furnishings; even the air itself seemed to be fuzzy. It was as though a thick gauze veil hung before her eyes.

  Like a morning mist the whiteness slowly dissipated. The walls turned to sickly green. A nurse she had not seen before smiled down at her. She had deep-brown eyes brimming with kindness.

  ‘Just rest,’ she said. Her voice was as kind as her eyes.

  Marcie closed her eyes. She was weary and aching, and yet there was only one thought at the front of her mind.

  ‘Where’s my baby?’

  ‘Just rest.’

  A terrible panic grabbed hold of her. She managed to get herself up on her elbows.

  ‘Where’s my baby? Is it dead? Was it born?’

  Using both hands, the kindly nurse pressed her back onto her pillow.

  ‘You gave birth to a little girl.’

  ‘A girl!’ Her voice was full of wonder.

  The nurse was saying something. She caught what it was.

  ‘Now you mustn’t worry yourself about anything. Just rest and in less than a fortnight your problems will be over and you’ll be able to go home.’

  Nothing could have prepared Marcie for how she was feeling. Nothing counted except one thing above all others. ‘I want my baby!’

  ‘You can have your baby, but not if you take on so. Once you’ve calmed down and taken stock of the situation, you can feed her. But you have to be calm. It does no good to be overenthusiastic about the child.’

  What an odd thing to say, Marcie thought to herself. I must not be overenthusiastic – and then it hit her. The nurse was telling her that she must not get too attached to the child. Her little girl was being put up for adoption. They probably had parents already picked out for her. The adoptive parents would see the little bundle of flesh take her first steps, say her first words. They’d be there on her first day at school. They’d love her and she would love them for doing so. It was likely that she’d never know she was adopted or who her real parents were.

  A whole day later, once she had calmed down and thought very carefully how she should approach this, she was allowed to see her baby. Not allowed to get out of bed, the baby was brought to her. On her right wrist she wore a pink band. The band simply said ‘Baby Brooks’.

  ‘Joanna,’ she said softly as she took the tiny hand in hers. ‘Your name’s Joanna.’

  The name had come to her out of the blue; Joanna was as close as she could get to Johnnie. Her lost love deserved a part of him to live on.

  Two days later she was allowed back into the room she shared with Sally and Allegra. Joanna went too.

  Both Sally and Allegra had given birth to boys.

  ‘I never believed it could be so painful,’ said Marcie as she stroked the side of her baby’s head. ‘I never thought you would ever come, Joanna,’ she said to the baby.

  Sally rebuked her. ‘You shouldn’t give her a name.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s not yours to name. You’re going to give her away.’

  Allegra looked up from repacking and smoothing her beautiful clothes. She was already thinking of life away from this place. ‘Sally is right, Marcie. It will only make it harder.’

  Marcie felt as though her heart had swollen to twice its normal size. There was no arguing with what they were saying,
but never had she felt so full of love.

  ‘Her name’s Joanna.’

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Rita Taylor was stretched out on the sofa eating chocolates, eyes glued on the television. All around her drawers and cupboards hung open. Items of clothing had been flung over the back of the sofa; more items were scattered over the floor. This included chunks of orange, red and blue glass – modern chunky vases bought by her father at extortionate prices. Some of the glass was in pieces having been smashed against a wall.

  Rita didn’t move when she heard the front door slam.

  ‘I’m home!’

  Her father’s cheery disposition evaporated on seeing the state of the room.

  ‘What the fuck …! What’s this?’

  ‘Coronation Street.’

  ‘I don’t mean that! I mean this!’

  Alan Taylor was standing in the middle of something resembling a war zone.

  Rita shifted herself and chose another chocolate. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Then good riddance to the old tart. But why my Whitefriars! What the fuck did she do that for?’ His voice broke with emotion as he stared down at the chunks of heavy glass. They looked like coloured ice in a sea of blue and orange Wilton carpet.

  ‘Because she couldn’t find a mirror to break and leave you with seven years bad luck,’ said Rita once she’d swallowed most of the chocolate she was eating. Not once did her attention stray from Elsie Tanner who was presently coming on strong to Len Fairclough.

  Alan picked up the biggest chunks of glass. He regarded the jagged edges and the multi-coloured shards scattered all around. There was no chance they could be mended. They were finished – just like him and Stephanie.

  ‘After all I did for her …’ he muttered.

  ‘Never mind. At least you won’t have to worry about a divorce,’ remarked Rita.

  He scratched his head and nodded. That much was true. It wasn’t common knowledge but he’d never married Stephanie despite her pleading. Still, it definitely had its advantages. Not having been married in the first place also meant he didn’t have to pay maintenance.

  ‘I suppose she ran off with another bloke.’

  Rita filled him in on the details. ‘Someone she met at the club years ago.’

  ‘Really?’

  He couldn’t help sounding shocked. What surprised him the most was that he hadn’t had a clue that she was leaving. The bitch!

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s good riddance then.’ He leaned over the back of the sofa and gave his daughter’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘You’re beyond the age of needing a mother anyway.’

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘I take it this is a good programme,’ he said, nodding at the screen.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘You’re not going out tonight?’

  Rita loved this new drama series and her father’s interruptions were beginning to get on her nerves. ‘Look, Dad. I’m having second thoughts about being a mod. I have to think things through.’

  Alan grinned. ‘You mean the bloke you currently fancy is a long-haired git wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorbike. Right?’

  The credits were rolling. Coronation Street had finished, Elsie was considering her options with Ken and her son was in some kind of trouble – as usual. Rita would watch what happened next week. Her eyes were shining with excitement when she turned round to face her father.

  ‘I’m back with Pete. It was off with him and now it’s on again. We met up again the other week and, well, one thing led to another. And guess what he told me? His mate, Johnnie, the bloke Marcie was sweet on, has been killed. So where’s Marcie? Her family said she’d gone off to live with him and his parents until they got married. But guess what?’

  ‘You keep me guessing a lot,’ said her father. This was the first news he’d had about Marcie for ages. But he was patient. He left his daughter to tell him at her own pace.

  ‘Pete and the boys went to the funeral. And guess what?’

  ‘Not another guess!’

  ‘His dad was a vicar!’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘St Luke’s, Pimlico. That’s where Pete told me he lived, though he’d always played it down. Johnnie didn’t like people knowing that his dad was a vicar.’

  Rita carried on talking about Pete and how wonderful it was to make up and how they’d talked about getting engaged, and married, and having their own house …

  Alan wasn’t listening. In his head, he was making further enquiries, diving into his car and heading for London, more specifically, St Luke’s, Pimlico.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Rosa Brooks had made the mistake of buying a sketch pad and a box of poster paints for Garth. Since then he’d made a habit of setting himself up on her kitchen table. While she cooked and cleaned, he drew and painted to his heart’s desire.

  ‘Some of my pictures are stories,’ he told her, ‘and some are for real.’

  He did her one of vegetables growing in the garden. The detail was quite explicit – the vegetables were growing in the exact same place as where the shed now sat. She pointed that out to him.

  ‘Yes, but this is how they would have looked like if we had planted them.’

  Rosa frowned. ‘We?’

  Garth nodded. ‘Tony was digging there, it was raining and dark and I had nowhere else to go.’

  Rosa nodded gravely. Garth’s mother was famous for turning him out when the occasion demanded. There was no room for a backward son at one of Edith Davies’s liquor parties.

  ‘I helped him,’ he said, as he gravely outlined his hand with a blue-tipped paintbrush.

  ‘He asked you to help him,’ Rosa stated.

  Garth shook his head. The tip of his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘He didn’t seem to see me. And then the other man came.’

  ‘Other man?’

  ‘The one who came to the pictures with me and Marcie.’

  Rosa knew he meant Alan Taylor. Garth was a sweet soul but it wasn’t wise to accept all he said as gospel truth. She had to confront her son. She had to know what he’d been doing that night and why Alan Taylor had turned up.

  ‘I hid,’ said Garth.

  ‘The other man did not see you?’

  Garth shook his head.

  And my own son was too drunk to realise that someone had been helping him dig.

  The next question was the most difficult to ask.

  ‘Was my son burying something in the hole you were digging?’

  ‘A sack.’

  ‘A sack?’ Her old heart doubled its beat. Holy Mother of God, give me more time. I promise I won’t protest when the time comes. But not now. Please not now!

  ‘A sack of something.’

  *

  Marcie had disobeyed the rule that baby must lie outside the main entrance in her pram in all winds and weathers. She’d been promised to a bank manager and his wife. They were unable to have any more children and required a companion for their three-year-old boy.

  ‘As though Joanna is a puppy,’ she’d said contemptuously.

  The papers were being drawn up. It had been pointed out to her that she was under age and thus an adult would have to sign for her. Miss Turnbull offered her services.

  Marcie had fled the oppressing brown décor of the old dragon’s office and gone out into the fresh air. On the way she grabbed Joanna from her pram and ran with her to the seat beneath the tree.

  Again and again she had wished for a miracle, waking in the middle of the night, fear lying like a damp blanket against her skin. Miracles were the only option she had left.

  The summer was cool, but she didn’t care. Well wrapped up, mother and baby remained sitting on the wrought-iron seat beneath the oak tree. She was running her fingertips over Joanna’s soft cranium when she sensed a shift in the state of things.

  For a brief moment the sun warmed her face, then was gone again.

  ‘Hello, Marcie.’

  For a
split second she could barely breathe. She looked up and there he was. Alan Taylor!

  The colour drained from her face. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Nothing had changed. She saw the same old cockiness as he sat down beside her.

  He reached out and touched the baby’s fingers.

  ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘Girl.’

  The sound of her own voice seemed far away. Joanna’s tiny hand had slipped out of her mitten. Very gently, Alan pushed it back in again. Joanna reacted, her hand curling around Alan’s thumb.

  He looked up at her suddenly.

  ‘I suppose you’re wondering how I found you.’

  Dumbstruck, she only managed to nod her head and say, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Our Rita’s become a rocker again. She’s back with that Pete. He told her that Johnnie had got killed on his bike and that the service had been at his old man’s church. So I went to the vicarage. Told him I was your dad and was worried about you.’

  Alan’s fair hair was slicked well back from his face. ‘And before you ask, no I didn’t tell your dad that I was coming here. I wanted to come alone.’ He looked down at the baby. ‘I wanted to see my kid.’

  ‘She’s not yours!’ she snapped, cuddling Joanna more tightly.

  He eyed her searchingly. ‘You don’t know that for sure.’

  The way he looked at her brought back her horror on discovering what he’d done. He saw that look and blushed like a girl.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was well out of order. But I’d been drinking …’ He rubbed at his eyes and all over his face. ‘I was crazy for you.’

  ‘Just as you were for my mother?’

  The remark took him by surprise. Alan Taylor always had an answer for everything, but on this occasion he looked lost for words. At last he seemed to snap awake. He shook his head.

  ‘She told me to get lost. But instead, she was the one who got lost.’

  Marcie was instantly alert to whatever information he was about to give. ‘Where did she go?’